Depicting buildings and landmarks in your illustrations
A little known fact is that technically all buildings are covered by copyright law. The copyright is usually held by the architect of the building and expires 70 years after the death of the architect. It is worth doing some research if you’re planning to depict any specific buildings or landmarks in an illustration for a commercial use.
Section 26 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 is an exception to copyright law that permits you to take a photograph, video or create a graphic image of a building without infringing copyright if it’s in a public place, however this doesn’t cover 3D reproductions of a building (so if you’re building a set or model, you should look into this).
There are however a lot of exceptions to Section 26 where the owners of a building have registered it as a trademark, and restrict any use of the image for commercial uses without permission. There’s a really useful guide on the Getty Images website which lists all known restrictions: http://wiki.gettyimages.com/
One interesting example is the Eiffel Tower, images of the tower during daytime are acceptable for commercial use, however at night when the lights are on (and the tower is the main focus of the image as opposed to a small part within a cityscape), images of the tower are restricted for commercial and editorial use.
Even if you’ve been sent reference images to use, or have been directed to draw something by a client, make sure you know the rules and check the image you’re drawing doesn’t require clearance. You can never assume that the client is aware of these laws and you may end up being responsible for any claims of infringement — it’s better to be safe than sorry. A lot of illustration contracts will include clauses that deal with ‘indemnity’ and you may have to sign something that says ‘Illustrator represents and warrants that the Illustrations do not violate any right of any third party’ — this means that it’s technically your legal responsibility to check for those clearances. Don’t get caught out.
Illustrations by Christopher Brown.
